Warner Bros: Gold Standard
by DetectiveGadget
Summary: When the music teacher's personal collection is stolen, the Warners offer to help him out. Can you solve it?


It was a beautiful Saturday morning and Kurt, Ed, and Tim were hiking in the woods. "Something seems a little...I don't know...different," Tim said as they climbed up to their lookout treehouse.

"I know. Mr. Reid's not practicing." Ed said.

Mr. Reid was the school's music teacher. The woods were right by his property and every Saturday morning, as they hiked, the young brothers were always serenaded by solo clarinet music coming from the shack behind Mr. Reid's house. Kurt climbed down from the tree house they were using as their lookout point. "You're right. I hope nothing's wrong." The words were barely out of his mouth when they heard a distant shout. "That's Mr. Reid."  
The Warner Bros. ran to the edge of the woods. In front of them was Mr. Reid's field. In the middle of the field was the shack. Mr. Reed was there peering through the shack's open door.

"Heavens I've been robbed!" he shouted for the fourth time. "Edward. Kurt. Timothy." He was trying to stay calm for the sake of the kids. "I'd just unlocked this door when I noticed a crack on my clarinet. I went back to my house to get a new one. I left the shack unlocked, just for a few minutes I assure you. And now look."

The Warners had never seen the inside before, but they'd heard about it. Mr. Reid's music shack had been burgled last year, with everything inside being stolen. When the teacher brought new furniture, he bolted it all to the floor: the table in the center, the single chair by the table, even the file cabinets.

At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. But then Kurt saw the broken pieces of pink pottery on the table. "Someone robbed your piggy bank?"

Mr. Reid looked embarrassed. "It held my rare gold coins collection." He crossed the room and stretched his tall frame up to the blank space on his only shelf. "I kept it right here."

"A crime of opportunity I see," Tim said, as he dealt with this every day. "The thief saw the unlocked door and was looking for something to steal. He or she grabbed the piggy bank, broke it open on the table-"

"Look," Kurt interrupted. "Footprints. Those aren't yours, are they?"

"No," Mr. Reid replied, examining the path of prints on the dusty floor. "I haven't been in here since last Sunday. Being in the middle of a field, this place gets dusty pretty fast."

Very carefully, Tim followed the prints, from the door over to the shelf, then back to the table. After that, a jumble of prints led all around the room. "I wonder what he was doing?"

Ed was on the other side of the shack by a pair of nailed down file cabinets. "These look like knee-prints," he said, pointing to a pair of round impressions between the cabinets. "Why would the thief kneel down?" He knelt down in the two knee prints. Right away, a glint of gold between the two cabinets caught his eye. Ed reached his arm through the narrow gap and pulled out a gold coin. "The thief was trying to reach this," he said proudly and handed the rescued coin to Mr. Reid.

"He was wearing 'SkyMaster' sneakers." Ed stood up and wiped a little floor dust from his nose. "It's printed on the tread. Don't worry, Mr. Reid. We'll find your thief."

The Warners got on the case immediately. This was a lot more fun than hiking through woods on a Saturday morning.  
Their first stop was Harvey's, the only shoe store in town. Mr. Harvey informed them that "SkyMaster" was a new brand of sneaker. "Since getting them in last week, I've made three sales," he said, checking his computer. "The first pair went to Dexter Jones. You know him?"

"Sure," Kurt said. Everybody knew Dexter "Beanpole" Jones. He resembled a seven foot tall skeleton and was the center of the school's basketball team.

"I sold the second pair to Ellie Sticks. You kids probably don't know Ellie." But they did. Ellie Sticks was a petty criminal whose taste for red suits made her look like a fireplug, or like a short Santa without the beard. She'd been arrested several times, once on the Warners' suggestion. But she always managed to avoid conviction. The third pair had been bought by Sonja Everest, a human mountain, as tall as Beanpole and as stocky as Ellie. Sonja had made a career for herself as a professional wrestler. Two years ago, she retired from the ring and moved to Williamsburg in order to breed toy poodles.

"We'll have to spy on them all," Ed whispered as they left the store. "Maybe break into their houses and see who did it."

"We're not breaking into anyone's house," Tim insisted. "I already think I know who the culprit is."

* * *

Can You Solve It?


End file.
